


Meg & Apollo's Highly Limited Roadtrip Playlist

by Curioser



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, RIORDAN Rick - Works, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Apollo (Percy Jackson) Needs a Hug, Friendship, Gen, Meg needs a hug too, Not Canon Compliant, Road Trips, Singing, apollo is a nerd, but give it feelings, but you cannot hug while driving, crackfic, no beta we die like men, pre-ToN, wild anachronism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26851273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curioser/pseuds/Curioser
Summary: Fourteen hundred miles. Four radio stations. Two friends trying hard not to kill each other, or to acknowledge the fact that in less than a week, they may never see each other again.And Lizzo. So much Lizzo.
Relationships: Apollo & Meg McCaffrey
Comments: 28
Kudos: 141





	Meg & Apollo's Highly Limited Roadtrip Playlist

**Author's Note:**

> Have I had this ridiculous little bugger stuck in my head for a year? Yes! Did I wait until the last possible moment before Tower of Nero drops to post it? Also yes! Did I throw out what we know about the first three chapters of that book in order to bend this story to my own whims? You betcha! 
> 
> Anyway. Here is a very silly little thing I made. The only preface I can offer is that while this isn't necessarily a true sequel to my other TOA story "The Forgotten Acres," it is sort of a ...spiritual sequel? In that the Apollo I'm envisioning here has come to the conclusion that he does at the end of "The Forgotten Acres," even if he doesn't talk about it, and even if Meg isn't privy to it. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it. I hope you listen along to the very silly songs I picked for the narrative as you read. And I hope you all get your hands on "Tower of Nero" as soon as possible. Holy shoot, y'all. End of an era.

**_I. "Good as Hell" ~ Lizzo_ **

There are approximately 1,400 miles between the Forgotten Acres and New York City. 

“So how the _Hades_ does this truck only pick up four stations?” Apollo asks, for at least the tenth time since leaving the farm. His left hand keeps the wheel of Reyna’s old truck steady while his right turns the dial of the radio. Garbled speech and static hiss through the speakers.

“Just pick one,” Meg snaps. Nearly an hour has passed since the last clear station, but Apollo is determined, and Meg is twelve seconds away from losing her mind. 

She’s on edge and she knows it. Better to search than to settle for static, and better static than to drive in silence, where nothing could distract her from thinking about their final destination. But _knowing_ she’s looking for a distraction is an irritation itself, and there’s no way out of it other than to sit in a grumpy knot and stew.

A fizz of static dissolves in a blast of clear vocals:

 _I do my haaaaiiiir toss, check my nails —_ _  
_ _Baby, how you feelin’?_

“Hey!” Apollo perks up. “I like this. I can work with this.”

 _“Work_ with it?” Meg asks, but Apollo isn’t listening. He’s already bending toward the steering wheel as though his whole body is directing itself at the song, like a sunflower toward light. He taps his fingers in time with the music, humming along as he learns the chorus. 

Meg lets out a loud, aggravated sigh and scooches down farther in her seat. 

**_II. "9 to 5" ~ Dolly Parton_ **

_“And that’s the end of our new releases hour. Next up, we’re revisiting the bombshell debut album ‘Sunburnt’ by Naomi Solace —”_

Meg has been actively ignoring the scratchy country station Apollo settled for on this wide stretch of empty farmland. But when he lunges for the radio dial, Meg sits up with new interest. Anything that could make Apollo choose static over music _has_ to be good.

“Did he say Solace? As in _Will_ Solace?”

“Ah.” Apollo’s face is glowing red with mortification. “Yes. That would be Will’s mother.” 

“I didn’t know she was a singer. Turn it back on.”

She catches the command too late, and he has already moved the dial back with a sour look on his face. A woman’s soulful voice soars over an accompanying piano, lively and furious. She sounds entirely too pissed to be Will’s mom.

“This is fun. Why did you turn it off?”

“I, er.” He coughs. “It’s a very good album — it really put Naomi on the scene, for good reason — but, um, some of the songs are a little hard for me to listen to.”

“Why?”

“Did you know there’s a trend in country music of women singing about how they’d kill their exes?” Meg’s look of delight clearly does not reassure him. “Well. I’m afraid I might have inspired one or two of those songs on this album. And, er, some of the heartbreak ballads. All of them, if I’m being honest.”

He squirms, as though afraid Meg is going to grill him about why he sucks as a boyfriend and a dad. She just rolls her eyes.

“Is this one of those ‘you taking credit for a mortal’s ideas again’ things?”

He sputters. “I do _not._ ”

“Do so. Ella called you out on it with that Martin guy.”

“Oh my gods — _Marvin Gaye,_ you heathen.”

“Whatever. You said you helped write it and you didn’t.”

“Okay, _fine_.” He sighs. “I _did_ help him find his bass player for the track, who was falling-down drunk at a blues club when they needed him to record. But I didn’t write it. You’re right.”

Getting Apollo to admit he’s wrong is a new pastime that has not lost its amusement yet. She smirks. When the song ends and another singer starts up — Meg knows this one, it’s the lady with the giant hair and all the makeup — she needles him. “So how did you inspire _her_ stuff?”

“Actually,” says Apollo, a hint of smugness in his voice. “She’s one of mine. A legacy, a few generations back. You’re welcome, world. You’re welcome, _America._ ” He turns up the volume. “I actually like this one a lot. Do you hear that percussion in the background? She’s using a _typewriter_. Just brilliant.”

“All famous people are part god,” Meg complains.

“Not true. You mortals are very good at producing artists with no divine ancestry at all. There’s something about human urgency that godly skill just can’t match. It’s kind of annoying, honestly.”

“Like who?” 

“I mean.” Apollo tilts his head in thought. “Beyoncé, obviously. Janelle Monáe. And…” 

His hands tighten reflexively on the wheel. He grits his teeth.

“Lin Manuel _freaking_ Miranda.”

Meg snickers to see the annoyance and admiration at war on Apollo’s face. He glances at her, features shifting to bemusement.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing.” He turns back to the road, smiling slightly. “You just don’t normally talk this much. That’s all.”

**_III. "Good as Hell" ~ Lizzo_ **

They play stupid car games, like finding the alphabet in license plates or changing one word on the billboards to make the advertisement inappropriate. They buy garbage snacks and bicker over who gets which flavor of Skittles, then groan over the wholly predictable stomachaches. They don’t talk about New York.

Apollo’s right hand is almost always fiddling with the radio dial, chasing a clear station across the airwaves. He seems to be searching for a particular song, and it is absolutely maddening how often he succeeds.

 _Come now, come dry your eyes_ _  
_ _You know you a star, you can touch the sky_ _  
_ _I know that it's hard but you have to try_ _  
_ _If you need advice, let me simplify…_

“We’ve heard this one _twelve times_ today,” Meg whines. Apollo just beams, plowing on through the chorus without missing a beat. He punches the verses as though he’s singing them to (or _at_ ) someone, as though he means them personally.

“Is this about Reyna?”

A note goes sharp as Apollo breaks off mid-lyric, turning to her incredulously. “What? Where did _that_ come from?”

“Isn’t this…?” She waves vaguely at the radio. “It’s, like, a breakup song. Right?”

“Oh.” Apollo looks back at the road. “Yes, that’s one way to read it. No, I’m not singing it about Reyna.”

 _“One?”_ She raises her eyebrows, because it _definitely_ sounds like a breakup song and she’s pretty dang sure he’s not singing about Commodus.

“Well, yeah. A musician can write a song with their own idea of what it means, but they don’t get to decide what it means for _you._ You get to make that meaning yourself.”

“That’s annoying.”

“That’s poetry.”

She huffs, because she doesn’t know how to argue this point with the literal god of the subject. “So it’s _not_ about a breakup.”

“It doesn’t _have_ to be,” Apollo corrects her. “It can be about...moving on. Deciding to change.” He shrugs, in a way that tries too hard to be nonchalant. “Getting out of a bad relationship.”

“You _just_ said it wasn’t a breakup song.”

“Maybe I wasn’t talking about a dating relationship.”

Meg bristles. She hates it when he does this, makes leading comments to get her to talk about what he knows she doesn’t want to discuss. It always feels like falling into some kind of verbal trap, making her anger surge, her shoulders tense and her hands flex for her swords. A dozen barbs spring to mind, half of them orders for him to shut up and mind his own business and to _stop_ trying to lure her into talking about...about he knows exactly what. She has a nasty retort on the tip of her tongue when she glimpses his face.

He’s not even looking at her. He’s staring at the road ahead. His gaze has cooled, his face blank and shuttered in a way she understands all too well. It’s his knuckles, white and tight on the steering wheel, that give him away. 

_Boss up and change your life_ _  
_ _You can have it all, no sacrifice_ _  
_ _I know he did you wrong, we can make it right_ _  
_ _So go and let it all hang out tonight_

 _'Cause he don't love you anymore_ _  
_ _So walk your fine ass out the door…_

Meg looks out her window, and thinks about fathers.

**_IV. Pick your favorite 80s song_ **

That moment is an anomaly in the trip. Because for the most part, Apollo is in an absurdly good mood. 

It’s taken Meg some time to clock it, but her friend/god/servant has been in unusually high spirits since they left Camp Jupiter. She wonders if it’s because of the healing Diana gave him, whether the goddess sneaked her brother a shot of divine _oomph_ as she purged zombie-juice from his mortal body. Whatever the reason, Apollo seems…brighter. Happier. He found a pair of cheap sunglasses at a gas station a few miles back and he won’t say it, but Meg can tell they make him feel cool. The truck’s radio is getting remarkably good reception — improbably good, _miraculously_ good — on a station full of the cheesiest 80s power ballads Meg has ever heard, and Apollo is belting every word with shameless joy. Despite the fact that his voice is inhumanly gorgeous, there’s something loose and sloppy about the way he slings the lyrics, slides into notes, improvises harmonies. 

Meg has heard Apollo sing to fight, to repel, to mourn. It occurs to her that this is the first time she’s ever seen him sing for _fun._ It’s ridiculous. It’s wonderful. She hates it.

He probably drove Helios’ chariot just like this, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the frame of the open window, thumping the beat on the roof with his fist. The wind on his face, music on the radio, day after glorious day. Who wouldn’t want to get back to that? Meg swallows a lump in her throat and stares at the road, trying to hide her blurring vision, clenching her teeth to keep her lips from trembling. 

Apollo nails a drum solo against the steering wheel and yells, “Come on, Meg!” to get her to sing with him. She pretends she can’t hear him over the roar of the open window. She feels farther away from him with every mile.

**_V. "Anthem" ~ Leonard Cohen_ **

They pass signs for Chicago. Neither of them acknowledges it, but Meg doesn’t miss the longing look Apollo gives the signs for Indianapolis. It would be the nicest thing either of them can think of to spend the night at the Waystation, to be fed and hugged by Jo and Emmie, to see how Leo is coping since getting the news about Jason. They stick to the southern highways instead. When Apollo gets too tired to drive, they pull off a nameless rural road that looks like the opening shot of a horror movie and sleep curled up in their seats.

When she wakes, they’re back on the road. The truck rumbles a soothing lullaby beneath her head. Slow and muzzy with sleep, she contemplates the red fabric pulled up to her chin until she recognizes it as Apollo’s hoodie. He must have tucked it around her sometime in the night. 

The sunrise ahead is a symphony of pink and gold. Meg, still adrift between waking and dreaming, watches the slow crescendo of colors. A man’s voice croons low and soulful on the radio.

 _The birds they sang_ _  
_ _At the break of day._ _  
_ _“Start again,”_ _  
_ _I heard them say._ _  
_ _“Don't dwell on what_ _  
_ _Has passed away_ _  
_ _Or what is yet to be…”_

In the driver’s seat, Apollo stares unblinking into the sunrise, though he seems to be looking at something else entirely — lost in thought, his eyebrows knit together. The curls on the left side of his head stand straight up where he has raked his fingers through them over and over. He rests his head against the window as he drives, and worries his bottom lip with his teeth. 

A stripe on his cheek catches the light as though it had recently been wet. There’s none of the delight from yesterday on his face. He looks seventeen, out of his depth, and scared out of his mind.

 _I can't run no more_ _  
_ _With that lawless crowd_ _  
_ _While the killers in high places_ _  
_ _Say their prayers out loud_ _  
_ _But they've summoned, they've summoned up_ _  
_ _A thundercloud_ _  
_ _And they're going to hear from me._

The shame creeps in like a morning chill. It’s not fair to be mad at him for wanting to be a god again. It’s not fair to resent him for being happy, for having fun, in defiance of the danger they’re driving into. It’s not like he doesn’t know the cost.

Abruptly, Apollo notices she’s staring at him. He straightens up, wipes the worried expression off his face.

“Good morning,” he says, with a slight — but genuine — smile. “Welcome to The Bluegrass State. We crossed the Kentucky border a few miles back. Are you hungry? I could kiss a gryphon for a maple lemon cronut —”

The road veers south, putting the sunrise to their left. Meg studies Apollo as he chatters about the breakfast options waiting for them at the next major exit. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t have any idea a dark mood had been clouding his face just moments before. 

But Meg does know him, and she knows now: He’s not looking forward to New York any more than she is. He’s just keeping it to himself, trying not to worry her. 

She can’t imagine the Lester Papadopoulos of six months ago doing that. Meg watches as he settles into the brave act for the day — still scared, but leaps and bounds stronger and surer than she has ever known him to be. Silhouetted against the sun like this, she can barely see his acne spots. The morning light has limned his hair in gold.

 _Ring the bells that still can ring._ _  
_ _Forget your perfect offering._ _  
_ _There is a crack in everything —_ _  
_ _That's how the light gets in._

_**VI. "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" ~ The Darkness** _

It feels like some kind of miracle that the Dunkin’ Donuts in Frankfort has exactly the kind of pastry Apollo has been craving. The sugar rush and the caffeine from his coffee hit at about the same time, and suddenly the manic good mood is back. When a familiar guitar comes blasting over the speakers, Apollo lets out a whoop of recognition and cranks the volume. 

“ _Can’t explain all the feelings that you’re making me fee-eee-eeeelllll —_ come on, Meg, this one is fun — ”

“I don’t know the words to this song!” she protests, mostly as a reflex. Apollo throws his hands up in exasperation. 

“How do you _not_ know the words to this song? Gods, you’re as bad as Calypso — ”

He shakes his head in mock disgust and goes right back to singing. Meg studies him. Thinks about what’s waiting for them in New York, and how many hours they have left before they get there. How many hours they have left, period. 

She hadn’t lied: She’d never known the words to this song, though she remembers it coming on the radio when she was very little, still living with her father. The lines in the chorus had been too fast for Philip McCaffrey to understand, so he sang them in a deliberate nonsense language that was different every time, making Meg scream with laughter. He knew exactly one word, which he — and Meg — would shout at the top of their lungs when it came around.

So as Apollo rocks his way through the lyrics in a high falsetto that should be terrible but infuriatingly isn’t, Meg waits until the end of the second chorus and pounces.

“ _I believe in a thing called looooooooove, ooooooooooh —”_

 _"_ GUITAR!”

Apollo jumps so violently that he nearly crashes the truck, and laughs so hard he can’t speak for the next five miles.

_**VII. "Good as Hell" remix ~ Lizzo ft. Ariana Grande** _

_I do my haaaaaaiiiiir toss, check my nails —_ _  
_ _Baby, how you feelin’?_

“You don’t have to change it,” Meg says, and Apollo’s hand stops an inch away from the radio dial.

“I thought you were tired of this song?”

“It’s growing on me.” She says it mostly for Apollo’s sake, but she realizes it might just be true. Since he reframed the meaning for her, she’s warmed to it. It’s less a pop song and more like...battle armor, in a way. 

She could use a little armor. They’ll be in New York tomorrow.

Apollo’s mouth quirks. “Growing on you enough to sing a little?”

She gives him a stony glare, but she doesn’t mean it, and she knows _he_ knows because his grin keeps getting wider. She groans. “ _Fine.”_

Apollo whoops in triumph and turns up the volume. “Okay. So she did this remix with Ariana Grande — it came on while you were sleeping — and it’s _great,_ and I can take Ariana’s part if you take Lizzo — ”

And so she does — reluctantly at first, but getting louder and more confident as she eases into it. She is surprised to find that she already knows every word, thanks to Apollo’s repeated renditions. His voice comes in behind hers in the second verse, light but deeper, weaving around her in the chorus so that her own voice sounds unusually clear and strong. Meg rolls down the window. 

If they succeed in New York, Nero will be gone. Out of Meg’s life for good. If they succeed _wildly,_ Apollo will be a god again. He’ll go back to Olympus — and right back to Zeus. She knows all too well what it’s like to live with that awful certainty. 

But he’s still beside her, still singing, his face lit up like the sun. Snatching a joyful moment of _now_ away from the dark promise of _soon._ What had Lupa told him, back at Camp Jupiter? _Act strong. That is how we start._

So she does. She gets to the chorus and lets it rip, stepping into the lyrics like putting on a costume, imagining the years of lies and threats and fears dispersing like dust behind their wheels. She sings like she’s going to fight something, because if Apollo can fake it for her sake, she can fake it for him. 

And it’s _fun,_ singing with him. Her heart swells with warmth as she realizes, with bedrock certainty, that he’s having fun singing with _her_. He’s happy to be here, with her, right now, and that’s enough. It's not like he wants to leave her. Whatever is coming can’t change right _now._ And whatever is coming, she won’t let him face it alone. 

She leads the way into the third chorus, into the big showstopper note, and Apollo comes in behind her like a ringing bell.

 _“If he don’t love you any moooooorrrrrre_ _  
_ _Then walk your fine ass out the dooooooOOOORRRRROH GODS OH NO —_ ”

Apollo yells and Meg shrieks and then _explodes_ into laughter, because in a moment of carelessness — in a burst of pure, unchecked, accidentally divine exuberance — Apollo forgot to modulate his voice, hit the resonant frequency of the glass and shattered the truck’s windshield.

He pulls over, swearing up a storm in English and Latin and other languages Meg can’t recognize (“ _Now?_ I get a power surge _NOW?!_ Where the _HELEN OF TROY_ was that in the effing _ZOMBIE FIGHT —")._ Meg can't answer because she is rocking with laughter, _crying_ with laughter, unable and unwilling to stop — and for a moment, she’s not faking anything at all.


End file.
